


Catharsis

by j_quadrifrons



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, GiveMartinHugs2k19, M/M, post-Lonely trauma, who me? projecting my desire for comfort all over martin blackwood?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-17 23:34:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19965052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_quadrifrons/pseuds/j_quadrifrons
Summary: It isn’t fair,he thinks,it was supposed to be better.





	Catharsis

Martin wakes up in the middle of the night now. Not every night, but often enough, at two or three in the morning. If he’s been having nightmares he doesn’t remember them, he just finds himself lying there fully conscious and with a terrible lonely ache where his heart ought to be.

 _It isn’t fair_ , he thinks, _it was supposed to be better_.

And it is better, really, in every way. When he’d found out the real details of Peter Lukas’s plan he’d given up on it for good, gone down to the Archives expecting to be turned away and instead welcomed with – well, with open arms, quite literally, Daisy wrapping him in an unexpected hug and then Jon clinging to him like a drowning man clutching at a life preserver, like someone welcoming back a loved one they thought was dead and gone. Like he’d really meant it when he’d stopped Martin in the hallway and said _I miss you_.

They’d talked, at last. At least he knows he can’t lie to Jon (not that he ever wanted to, but that they both know he _can’t_ , that’s worth something) and that means he can’t lie to himself, either. Jon had kissed him, the greatest shock of his life, and he hadn’t even apologized for it after. And now he gets to go home with Jon at the end of the day, gets to kiss him, gets to fall asleep in his arms, things he used to hate himself for even fantasizing about. And still, he wakes up cold and lonely sometimes. Too often.

The first time it had happened he’d looked over at Jon, peacefully asleep and wrapped in a cocoon of blankets, and had dragged himself to the sofa rather than risk waking him with his restlessness. The hurt, worried look Jon kept giving him in the morning was unbearable, though, so now he stays in bed, holding very still. He watches Jon from several inches away, the steady rise and fall of his chest, the flickering of his eyes behind their lids as he dreams. Martin reaches out as if to touch but his fingers hover a breath away from Jon’s skin, a hesitation he never has during the day.

Jon’s eyes flicker open and Martin jerks back, too fast to be anything other than guilty. “Martin?” Jon murmurs softly, and he reaches a hand out from his blanket nest. Martin presses his hand to his side and holds his breath.

It’s too dark to see much of anything but of course Jon knows anyway; his fingers settle on Martin’s jaw and with his thumb he rubs away the tears gathering at the corner of his eye. Martin’s breath catches in his throat, too loud, as Jon gently strokes his cheekbone.

“Come here,” Jon says.

And Martin does, closing the distance between them with a lunge and burying his face in Jon’s chest. It ought to feel ridiculous, Jon is so much smaller than him and bony with it, but his arms go around Martin’s shoulders and his fingers soothe through Martin’s hair and it’s nothing but comfort, safe and warm. Martin is crying suddenly, like he hasn’t in months, not since Elias tried to destroy him to stop him burning statements. When he hadn’t cried when Jon died, when his mother died, he thought maybe he’d run through all his tears and there would never be any more, but now he can’t stop, choking on sobs that feel like they’re coming from that bottomless place inside of him that will never, ever have enough. And through it all Jon is holding him tight, murmuring softly in his ear, “It’s all right. I’ve got you. I’ve got you. It’s all right. I love you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Please come yell about TMA with me, I have too many feelings  
> [@j_quadrifrons](https://twitter.com/j_quadrifrons), [backofthebookshelf](https://backofthebookshelf.tumblr.com)


End file.
